pour a little salt
by my best enemy
Summary: we were never here / teddymolly / non-linear / for chi


for chi, who is amazing and draws beautiful trees

**pour a little salt**

**x**

and now all your love is wasted

and then who the hell was I?

_skinny love - bon iver_

**x**

one day, teddy lupin gets up. one day, he brushes his hair, puts on his slippers, makes himself a cup of coffee, reads the daily prophet.

one day, he receives an owl. the owl is from lucy, he can tell. her handwriting is exactly the same as her sisters. the message is short, scrawled, to the point. lucy has never liked him.

one day teddy trembles, breaks, crashes, all while standing still.

one day

one day

one day

_molly is dead_

**x**

sometimes teddy imagines that he and molly are drawings, pencil sketches on a piece of paper. someone has erased molly, cleanly and precisely, leaving nothing behind but faint memories and broken hearts. teddy, though, _oh_, they tried to erase teddy, but they couldn't, not completely. teddy is smudges now, grey smudges.

teddy doesn't want to be grey smudges. he wants to be erased, too.

but he has long learned that lesson.

you can't always get want you want.

**x**

their first kiss is _firefirefire_ and teddy burns the roof of his mouth.

**x**

teddy tells molly he loves her once. a mistake, he isn't thinking. it isn't a big deal. molly shrugs, looks at him and says _i don't believe you_.

if it were any other girl, teddy would tell her again and again, convince her to believe him. but molly is not any other girl, molly is molly, stubborn, angry, lost little molly. and he just says _okay _and drops it.

**x**

vicky reacts very calmly, almost too calmly, when he tells her the truth about him and molly. she nods, says _i thought so_ and apparates home.

dom tells him later, in between her quick, vicious slaps and kicks teddy doesn't even try to dodge, that vicky spent the whole day crying and shows no sign of stopping, that he is a heartless bastard, that louis is coming over next and is going to kick his arse halfway to scotland.

it is an empty threat, but teddy locks his door, casts a spell or two, and wonders when, exactly, did he become such a fucking coward.

**x**

it is 12:26 when molly tells him she's leaving. teddy knows this because he had been staring at the clock while molly painted her toenails green and refused to talk to him.

_where to_? he asks, because, really, what else should he ask?

_somewhere._ says molly. _everywhere._

teddy would like to go with her, to somewhere, everywhere, but molly is fiercely independent. she's doing this alone.

he takes her hand, smearing the nail polish onto her palm. molly shakes her head and he wonders if she'll miss him.

**x**

once, when they are both quite young, they climb a tree together, as children are apt to do. molly seems to enjoy it at first, of course she does, the thrill of going _upupup _into the great unknown, the endless sky, that's molly's thing. teddy only does it because he's a boy, and he has to learn to be brave if he's going to be in gryffindor like his dad.

but, when they reach the top, molly's excited smile freezes and she clings to the branches tightly, so tightly teddy can see her knuckles grow white. _are you okay?_ he says and molly's face grows red. _i'm fine. _she snaps, but her voice breaks slightly and teddy can hear, even at his young age, _i'm scared, i'm scared, i'm scared._

he helps her climb down from the tree, very slowly and deliberately, and they both never mention it again, molly's fleeting moment of vulnerability.

**x**

in the time after she's left, teddy comes to realize that without molly he is basically just a hollow, empty shell. he has no hobbies, really, no interests, nothing besides a girl who will never love him, never love anyone, as much as she loves her freedom.

**x**

when he is 16 and she is 15, vicky falls in love with teddy, so teddy, because they are friends and he doesn't know what else to do, tells himself he should fall in love with her too.

it's not a bad relationship, and teddy thinks that they might marry someday, why not, maybe have kids, the whole deal.

yeah, that plan is pretty much shot to dust when molly happens.

**x**

he asks lucy once if she misses molly and she just _looks_ at him, like he has asked the stupidest question in the world. and he realizes, too late, that he has.

for lucy is just like him, eternally in competition, striving to make someone love her as much as she loves them. and teddy knows why she doesn't like him, because she can see the same despair in his face that she knows is in hers. teddy's despair may be because of unrequited love and hers because of a certain twin-ness which she has and molly doesn't, but it is theoretically the same.

their faces are mirrors, reflecting each other. it is terrifying and heartbreaking at the same time.

**x**

once in a while, he'll get a postcard or two, molly's twin-handwriting on the back of some cheery card depicting whatever exotic place she's visiting now.

_it's amazing here, _they'll say. _so beautiful, _they'll say. _i'm learning so much_, they'll say.

_how are you?, _they'll never say_. i miss you_, they'll never say_. i love you_, they'll never say.

but what does he expect?

**x**

one time, when it is snowing, he runs outside in only his boxer shorts and builds a snowman, just to make molly smile. she does and it is completely worth it.

**x**

teddy isn't haunted by molly's ghost, as much as he would like to be. he's haunted by her memory, but he has been haunted by her memory for years now, long before she died, so it isn't much of a change.

he doesn't think she's watching him, either. teddy doesn't know what heaven is exactly like, but he imagines molly's heaven full of jungles and deserts and adventures just around the corner.

he imagines that she can climb the tallest trees and look down and never, not once, be the slightest bit frightened.

**x**

he spellotapes the letter to his refrigerator, as a reminder to do something.

he's not quite sure what.


End file.
